HUMANE RELIGION

Humane Religion Magazinefrom Humane Religion

Animal Abuse Animal Sacrifice
May - June 1996 Issue

The multitude of your sacrifices--what are they to me?...Your hands are
full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my
sight. (Isaiah 1:11, 15, 16)

The prophet Isaiah spoke to his people in the eighth Century B.C. His
rejection of animal sacrifice was a reiteration of the biblical message that
had been taught since the time of Genesis. It was a message of God's care
and concern for the nonhuman beings who were just as much a part of creation
as the men and women who populated the earth.

From the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation, animals are included
in God's plan as surely as the people who were given responsibility for
them. These creatures, like their human counterparts, were created to
reflect the glory and the goodness of God.

But almost from the beginning, the bible records the abuse which human
beings heaped upon each other, and upon the animals with whose care they had
been entrusted. The story of the Great Flood which washed away an
increasingly violent world, is told in the sixth chapter of Genesis. The
Amplified Bible presents a chilling picture. "The earth was depraved and
putrid in God's sight, and the land was filled with violence (desecration,
infringement, outrage, assault, and lust for power). And God looked upon the
world and saw how degenerate, debased and vicious it was; for all humanity
had corrupted their way upon the earth and lost their true direction."
(Genesis 6:11,12)

Unfortunately, the people who survived the Flood were not a redeemed race
of human beings. The bible story of Noah is the story of a man who was
relatively righteous in his depraved generation. "Noah was ...blameless
among the people of his time."

This relative righteousness is underscored by the fact that the bible
reports Noah introduced drunkenness and carnivorism into the post-Flood
world. And this was the heritage he bequeathed to his descendants.

The world that emerged from the waters of the Flood was not a world in
which the human race emerged cleansed from its violence and degeneration. It
was a world that increasingly abused the poor and powerless. And in regard
to animals, it did so in the name of God.

Although the bible teaches that both animals and humans are nefesh
chaya—living souls— man decided that God would be pleased by the ritual
sacrifice of animals; by the slaughter of the living souls who had been
given into his care as a sacred trust.

Increasingly, animal sacrifice became a central tenet of Judaism. Until
the prophet Isaiah burst onto the scene. He decried this debased form of
worship that killed God's creatures in the name of God. And he linked the
abuse of humans with this ritual abuse of animals.

The Prophet Isaiah linked the abuse of humans with
the ritual abuse of animals.

"I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or
goats...Cease to do evil. Learn to do good; seek justice; reprove the
ruthless. Defend the orphan, plead for the widows." (Isaiah 1:11,16,17)

Isaiah's ministry inaugurated the era of the Latter Prophets of Israel.
His fellow prophets, Amos, Micah and Jeremiah were equally vocal about the
evils of animal sacrifice and its relationship to a just world order.

"I hate and despise your feasts, I take no pleasure in your solemn
festivals. When you offer me holocausts I reject your oblations, and refuse
to look at your sacrifice of fattened cattle....but let justice flow like
water and integrity like an unfailing stream." (Amos 5:21,22,24)

And when Amos had completed his prophetic work, Micah took up the call
for an end to human and animal abuse.

"With what shall I come before the Lord...Shall I come to Him with
burnt offerings, with yearling calves?...He has told you, O man what is
good....to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God."
(Micah 6:6,8)

Then Jeremiah repeated God's message of displeasure with the abuse of
animals; an abuse that was reflected in the treatment of powerless human
beings.

"Thus says the Lord of Host, the God of Israel...If you do not
oppress the alien, the orphan or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in
this place [the Temple of sacrifice at Jerusalem], then I will let you dwell
in the land that I gave to your fathers." (Jeremiah 7:3,6,7)

But no one heeded the Prophets who equated animal and human abuse.
Widows, their children, orphans and animals were without recourse in a
society that had neither compassion nor justice for the least powerful among
them. Jerusalem fell to its enemies and for decades the Jewish people who
had lived there were exiled to the land of Babylon.

Like their ancient predecessors, modern men continue to ignore the fact
that the bible links their creation and their fate with that of the animals.
But the scriptures stand as a constant reminder that the misery and torment
men inflict on these creatures is a counterpart of the misery and torment
they inflict on each other.

In our Judeo-Christian culture animals are no longer sacrificed on the
altars of religion. Most people would consider this unacceptable, if not
blasphemous. But although there are few in this day and age who believe
their souls will be saved by the slaughter of animals, they have been
replaced by those who think their bodies will benefit from the torment of
these creatures.

“The violence done to Lebanon shall sweep over
you, the havoc done to its beasts shall break your own spirit.”

In the 20th century, those who place their faith in the gods of science
accept the ongoing sacrifice of countless animals. And those who perform
their atrocities in countless universities, slaughter houses, and corporate
development labs, are supported in their actions by a society that has been
conditioned to believe that only by the sacrifice of these animals can they
be guaranteed health, beauty, clean clothes and white teeth.

But there are modern day prophets who, like the Latter Prophets of
Israel, speak out against this violence. They understand that the abuse of
any of God's creatures is an affront to their Creator. They also know that
the torture and murder of helpless animals cannot be separated from the the
abuse and murder of other human beings.

In the late seventh century B.C. the prophecies of Habakkuk emphasized
this correlation between the treatment of humans and nonhumans. Cruelty
against animals, as well as cruelty against other people, would reap a
bitter harvest: “The violence done to Lebanon shall sweep over you; the
havoc done to its beasts shall break your own spirit. “ (Hab. 2:17)

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